Monday, February 3, 2014

Fixing the Weapons Table, Part 3: Polearms (part 1)

Polearms are just about the most ubiquitous and varied category of weapon to have ever existed. Heck, spears alone have been in use around the world for hundreds of thousands of years, and are so fundamental that chimpanzees have been observed crafting and using spears for hunting. But in the Middle Ages and continuing on into the Early-Modern period, there was a proliferation of new varieties of pole-weapons designed for all sorts of uses. Many of them were very simple to make and to wield, allowing peasant armies to have some recourse against mounted knights. Many of them were much more complicated and specialized, designed to bust open armour, cut harnesses, or just really mess up a dude's face.

You would be hard pressed to find an army that went to war without polearms, if only just spears; getting into the Late Medieval period most armies would have units of some other specialist polearms - usually halberds. And yet they hardly turn up in fantasy RPGs these days, whether tabletop of video game. Many such weapons were included in 1st and 2nd Edition AD&D, and a few of those made the jump to 3.5 and Pathfinder. My goal here is to round out the list of available polearms and fix those already existing ones which don't seem to have been statted up quite right.

I held off on doing this third "Fixing the Weapons Table" post for a long time because I wanted to make sure all these polearms were accurately statted up. However, it soon became apparent that there is very little we actually know for sure about medieval polearms (just ask my friend Jason, who is writing his doctoral dissertation on staff weapons, and who will probably take issue with a lot of this post). On a fundamental level, too, I can't make these polearms completely accurate because the D&D combat system doesn't lend itself well to that. There are just too many limitations on how a weapon can be implemented in this game. So what I am trying to do here is make these polearms fit in well with the other D&D weapons while still paying lip-service to historicity and realism.

I know polearms aren't the most glamorous of weapons for an adventurer to wield. There are plenty of legendary swords, from Gram and Excalibur to Narsil and Luke's lightsaber, but you will be hard pressed to find a character from legend or modern fantasy known for wielding a magic glaive-guisarme or who slew an evil warlord with a bec-de-corbin. Nevertheless, I believe polearms definitely have a place in RPGs and should not be so sidelined as they are. Not only do many polearms feature a variety of spikes, hooks, and blades for accomplishing specific tasks (like tripping, disarming, bracing against a charge, etc.), but I imagine in general that long pointy things come in handy in a world full of powerful monsters and narrow dungeon corridors.

Alright, I've been talking a bit too much. Without further ado, polearms:

Bardiche

Royal Armouries - Leeds

The bardiche is basically an elongated axe-blade attached to a stout haft in two places. It has already been statted up for Pathfinder pretty well in the Advanced Player's Guide. I just have one quibble with their version of the bardiche: the bardiche is usually attached to a pretty short pole for a polearm.

When studying polearms, you quickly find that there are more names for polearms than there are types of polearms. This is the case with the bec de corbin and the Lucerne hammer as well. They are essentially the same weapon: a hammer with a long forward spike and a rear-facing curved beak, all on the end of a long pole for maximum smashing. Some descriptions will say one or the other version tends to have a longer or a shorter spike, or tends to have a flat hammer vs a coronel hammer (the pronged hammer-head seen above), but there is no definite division between the two as far as I am aware.

Both "types" of this weapon have been statted up already, both of them in the Advanced Player's Guide. I have statted them up differently, with the Lucerne hammer as the one with the coronel hammer and the longer forward spike:

Incidentally, if you have trouble reconciling the blatantly French name of the bec de corbin or the Swiss name of the Lucerne hammer with your fantasy setting, consider calling them a 'crow's beak' and a 'long hammer' respectively.

Bill

Royal Armouries - Leeds

A bill is one of the simplest polearms. It is basically a weaponized pruning hook. Some of them have a spike on the front for stabbing dudes, but I am going to ignore that to avoid confusion with the guisarme (see below). This too has been statted up in the APG, but I have some changes to make. Since the bill is such a fundamental polearm, my main change is to move the bill from Martial Weapons to Simple Weapons. This should encourage its more widespread use in the game. Second, since we're ignoring that some bills have spikes, I'm removing the 'brace' weapon quality. They didn't give it piercing damage anyways, so I'm not sure how it would brace. I am also adding 'trip' because look at that hook.

Fauchard and Fauchard-fork

Royal Armouries - Leeds

The fauchard is another one of those most basic polearms. It is basically a scythe blade mounted on the end of a pole (but not perpendicularly, like with an actual scythe). I hope I don't sound like a broken record when I say that this weapon has already been statted up (this time in Classic Horrors Revisited) but I have some serious changes to make. First of all, I am moving it from Exotic Weapons to Simple Weapons because it is a very basic polearm. I am also changing the damage from 1d10 to 2d4 to better match its origins in the scythe. I am reducing the crit range from 18-20 to 19-20 because this is a simple weapon and it really didn't deserve the higher crit range in the first place. I'm also removing the 'trip' weapon quality because there is nothing on it specifically designed for tripping people.

There is an evolution of the fauchard that combines it with the military fork (see below) to give it greater stopping power against charging cavalry. It is also probably the most awkward-looking polearm ever.

The glaive is a big curved blade on a stick - another of the basic polearms. I have a few changes to make from the glaive found in the Core Rulebook. I knocked the damage down from a 1d10 to a 1d8 and changed the crit from x3 to 19-20/x2. Also, I made it a simple weapon.

The glaive-guisarme is the bastard child to two different polearms, adding the hook and the point from the guisarme to the long, curved blade of the glaive.

A sort of glaive-guisarme (bottom) and a glaive (middle)

This was statted up pretty well in the APG. I just added slashing damage (it only had piercing) and gave it 'trip'.

Guisarme

Royal Armouries - Leeds

Here we have the guisarme, a fancier and spikier version of the bill. First off, I added 'brace' and 'disarm' to the list of things it can do, because it has both a spike and a hook with which to do those things. And I vacillated for a while as to whether I should make the guisarme a simple weapon or leave it as a martial weapon - since it's a fancier version of the bill, which is already a simple weapon. Eventually, I decided that it, too, should be a simple weapon because it is numerically not all that different from the bill, fauchard, or glaive. Also because I hope it will encourage polearm use among adventurers and NPCs.

The halberd is definitely the most recognizable and widely-used of the non-spear polearms. It is essentially an axe modified for use on the end of a long pole. This one is staying squarely in the Martial Weapons category, because it dishes out 1d10 damage. The only problem I have with the halberd as it is currently statted up in the Core Rulebook is that it lacks 'reach' - one of the key characteristics that separates the halberd from the axe. The simple fix (and the opposite of what I did to the bardiche) is to just give it 'reach'.

Military Fork
Sadly, I don't have a picture for this last one. Just imagine a weaponized pitchfork, but on a longer staff and missing the middle prong. It also often has additional hooks below the prongs for pulling people off horses. It is designed to knock folk off horses, and it doubles as a pointier spear (or less-pointy trident). Military Fork- Martial Weapon
Cost: 9 gp
Dmg (S): 1d6
Dmg (M): 2d4
Critical: x3
Weight: 6 lb.
Type: P
Special: Brace, reach, see text
A rider hit with a military fork suffers a penalty to ride checks made to stay in the saddle equal to 4 plus the fork-wielders strength modifier (so a fighter with 18 strength would inflict a -8 penalty to his opponent’s ride check, but a fighter with an 8 strength would inflict only a -3 penalty).

Here is a picture of a halberd-fork.

Doge's Palace - Venice

This particular example is clearly a ceremonial weapon, but battle-worthy halberd-forks did exist. If you want one, just add '-4 penalty to ride checks made to stay in the saddle'. Maybe add a couple gold to the price as well.

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Okay, that's a lot of polearms, but there are many still to go. They will have to wait for a later update, so look forward to Polearms Part 2 in the near future. I will also be homebrewing some polearm-specific feats, since one of the main problems with utilizing them is the lack of feat support, so that's something to look forward to, too. You know, if you like polearms and stuff.

3 comments:

I always think of the Sparhawk series by David Eddings for Lochaber Axe (I'm pretty sure they called it an axe in the book rather than a hammer) and how it was a truly gruesome weapon that would cleanly lop off a man's head while pious Bevier prayed for the man's soul. So at least Eddings gave the pole arm some love.

Gah, I was mixing up Locaber axe and lucern hammer in my brain and wondering why your pictures of the lucern hammer did not look nearly as nasty as Bevier's axe did in my head. Point remains though, that it is a pole arm and awesome.